KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE-USE BOTH SHORT AND LONG-FORMATS JUDICIOUSLY
What You Don’t Know About Writing Short-Form Content For Social Media
The secret of reaching lots of viewers
Short blog posts mean more productivity
You can post multiple social media posts or short blog posts in the same time it takes to create a 3000-word blog post. Instead of forcing yourself to run on a treadmill to create content, you can focus on creating long blog posts at a slower pace. [Sources: 11, 15]
How to get more conversion
In fact, most experts claim that you need to create multiple short posts in quick succession to get the same conversion results as using only a few long posts. Although you can still use long articles because they have many benefits, creating this type of short content in your strategy will greatly increase your efficiency.
Know your target audience
Ideally, you should develop a balanced combination of long and short content to provide your audience, as well as Google and other search engines, with the content they want. Only after you fully understand your target audience can you determine the ideal length of your content. [Sources: 4, 7, 11, 15]
You are probably used to creating a variety of content formats — from videos and infographics to social content, interactive content, and more. But just as you’ve probably established a process for deciding which format to use, you also need to understand how long your content should be.
To reach lots of viewers, create shorter content
Fortunately, there is a proven process for determining the best content length for your marketing strategy. As I said, depending on your marketing strategy and goals, you will need to create different types of content. You will need to continually create shorter content so that it reaches as many viewers as possible. [Sources: 5, 7, 12, 14]
If your content strategy only focuses on long blog posts, e-books, and white papers, it will be difficult to attract the attention of your audience. However, if your audience prefers long-form content, you may find it necessary to create that kind of content, no matter how long it takes, to meet the needs of your readers. You should always think outside the box and be ready to create content that appeals to your audience, no matter the length. [Sources: 5, 12, 15]
The benefits of short-form content
Short-form content is usually easy to digest and covers a specific topic without involving too many details. Some examples of short films, for example, include a 2-minute video introducing New Zealand rugby legend and Mercedes-Benz ambassador Sean Fitzpatrick, the trailer for The Star Sydney Carnival.
The best content strategy
All in all, any good content strategy should include long content to improve search rankings and brand credibility, as well as concise content to ensure consistency and readability, and be optimized for devices. By telling your story, clarify what you want to achieve.
Creating your marketing plan
Focus on laying the foundation for your long content, while using short-form social aspects for your marketing plan. When you combine the long content library with the social aspects of short content, you can create a marketing plan that successfully targets your audience from all angles.
Organize the themes of the content into visual infographics, and your audience can easily share this information on various social media platforms. [Sources: 3, 7, 13]
The advantage of short updates
Some posts need to be short and straightforward, and longtime readers of your blog or regular customers of your brand who are familiar with you will be happy to receive shorter updates all the time rather than waiting forever before posting a detailed post. Likewise, if you want to establish authority on a topic or attract tons of backlinks, you should spend a lot of time creating main or cornerstone content.
Don’t forget to create your cornerstone content
This is usually the long-form, and there is really no limit in terms of the number of words, but try at least 2000–3000 words. To always make sure your content is of the appropriate length for your particular marketing plan, let’s start by looking at the difference between long and short content. There is no universally agreed word length for short or long content, but HubSpot sets the threshold somewhere around the 1000 wordmark. [Sources: 3, 14]
Know your audience to know which type of content is best
The research includes lots of facts, and expert opinions that compare long and short content, especially blog posts and web pages. You need to know which type of content is best for your audience and create more content while understanding that different parts will be used for different purposes.
If you create content to position yourself in search results and want to increase your visibility on social media, you need to know what you are competing with and what works for your competitors. [Sources: 0, 5, 8]
On the other hand, when considering all types of content, some marketers would define long-form as anything other than very short elements like ads, social media posts, cards, or invitations. For example, social media posts, emails, and mobile marketing content lend themselves to shorter messages.
Also, a short letter may be more mobile-friendly; An important consideration due to the continued growth in media consumption on mobile platforms. [Sources: 8, 9]
An advantage of writing in long-format
One of the main advantages of writing in a long format is that it provides much more visual reading space, which allows you to provide more detailed information to your clients. The creation of long-lasting authoritative articles opens the door to many other opportunities for content reuse.
Longer content will get more backlinks
Whether you’re running a link-building campaign or just looking to grow organically, longer content has been proven to get more backlinks than short blog posts. Consistent, long articles have become the cornerstone of effective blogging strategies, proving that longer, more valuable content has lasting power on the web. [Sources: 9, 11]
The importance of smart forms
Customizing, testing, and optimizing the content of smart forms takes time, but you can bring many benefits to your business and customers by answering visitors’ questions and providing more meaningful connections with real and engaging content.
Serve your audience well
It takes time and resources to create great content relevant to your customers. Longer content usually requires more time, effort, and money to create, whether you use your talents or rely on content authoring services.
The time required to research, create, edit, optimize, and publish can be much longer, and creating long content usually requires more people than creating short content. [Sources: 9, 12, 13]
Balance the short and the long-form
The bottom line is that your online content should be interesting and valuable to your readers. Google continues to change its algorithm to deliver relevant content to users. The reality is that any successful content marketing strategy must balance both the short and the long form in order to meet the needs and wants of its audience. [Sources: 5, 12]
You CAN determine which format is best for your audience
There are an infinite number of combinations of content and marketing channels, so deciding which strategy is the best is not always easy. But once you get into the daily process of implementing your content strategy, it won’t be difficult to determine which format is best for your audience! [Sources: 8, 11]
The Takeaway — Determining the length of a blog post
Determining the length of your content is one of the most common questions faced by content marketers in the digital marketing industry. One of the great mysteries of content marketing is how long a blog post should be. Any business will find it prudent to write to publish useful analytic blog posts and webinars while sharing engaging tweets, well-thought-out infographics, and fun Facebook posts. [Sources: 8, 9, 10]
I hope my article has helped you know some of the not-so-obvious aspects of using the short-form versus the long-form. Also, I have outlined the advantages of using both formats to increase the interest level of your stories. Good luck in your future endeavors in this space!
My thanks, as always, to @DrMehmetYildiz, who has kindly published my articles on Synergy! Please share your sentiments in the comments section. Thank you!
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Sources:
[0]: https://nealschaffer.com/short-form-vs-long-form-content/
[1]: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/short-form-video-trends
[2]: https://rockcontent.com/blog/short-form-and-longform-where-they-fit-in-your-content-strategy/
[3]: https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/media/blog/long-form-content-vs-short-form-content
[5]: https://www.semrush.com/blog/short-form-vs-long-form/
[8]: https://westebbemarketing.com/2020/09/01/long-form-and-short-form-content/
[9]: https://www.bkacontent.com/long-form-content-short-form-content/
[10]: https://www.v9digital.com/insights/long-form-vs-short-form-content-which-to-use-when-why/
[11]: https://www.ndash.com/blog/long-form-vs-short-form-content
[12]: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/long-form-short-form-content-best-business/189453/
[13]: https://www.thetilt.com/content/short-vs-long-form-content
[14]: https://nethustler.com/short-form-vs-long-form-content/
[15]: https://shanebarker.com/blog/short-form-vs-long-form-content/
